


An Accidental Eavesdropper

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe, Children, F/M, Family, Friendship, Humor, Post Bartlett Administration, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-05
Updated: 2009-10-05
Packaged: 2019-05-15 22:06:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14798846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: Derrick overhears things.





	An Accidental Eavesdropper

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

  
Author's notes: Alternative universe, total fantasy (or is it?)

Rating Adult - description of sexual activity.

Special note - there are many, including myself, who would have problems with the option that Deborah and Tom held out for themselves, given that Deborah has inherited the gene that could cause the wife/female partner of a male with said gene to miscarry after one pregnancy. However, I felt the need to see if I could put myself in another' s shoes, so to speak, as an author. It was hard for me to write and I did not spend as much time on that section as I maybe should have. Hopefully, this subplot will not keep those of you who have these issues from continuing to read my work.

 

Spoilers through end of series; possible spoilers for \"Holding Hands on the Way Down\"

 

 

Not mine, never were, never will be, but they consume my soul

 

 

 

Feedback and criticism always welcomed  


* * *

**July 14, 2017; Albion, CA 2:15 AM PDT**

"I need."

At first, Derrick was confused. Then, as consciousness drove sleep from his brain, he began to get his bearings. He was on the deck. It was dark (a quick glance at his watch gave him the time) and he recognized the peaceful sounds of high summer night creatures.

He also recognized other sounds and groaned to himself as full memory of the day's events returned to him.

It started around noon when Natasha received the phone call from Phoenix; her mother had suffered a heart attack.

At first, Natasha had wanted him to take her to Santa Rosa, the nearest airport, the one into which she had flown on the seventh. She didn't mind transferring at San Francisco or Oakland. But Derrick had insisted on driving her down to the city. It was only about eighty minutes' more driving time, he told her ("Eighty minutes each way, Derrick, that's a lot of extra driving") and he would feel better if she were on a non-stop flight. While Natasha hurriedly packed her things, Derrick had called the airlines. The first available confirmed seat wasn't until 6:00 that evening, but Natasha might be able to get a standby seat on an earlier flight.

Meanwhile, CJ had been on the phone to Sacramento. "Thanks, Morgan, we really appreciate it. I'll feel better, Paul will feel better, and I know that Derrick will feel better."

Then she had given Derrick the name of an assistant director in SFO's airport security office. The young man would be allowed to accompany Natasha and wait with her in the departure lounge.

As bad luck would have it, there had been some traffic delays in Marin County and by the time the two of them reached the airport, the 6:00 flight was the next one scheduled to leave.

Derrick had waited at the gate until the desk attendant told him that the plane was in the air, so it was nearly 7:00 by the time he had left San Francisco and close to 11:00 by the time he had arrived back in Albion to find only Tom and Deborah waiting for him. His father had developed one of his headaches, he was told, and had gone to bed about 7:30. CJ had followed suit about ninety minutes later, after the kids had been settled in their beds. Natasha had called about 10:00 to let them know that she had arrived safely in Phoenix and was at the hospital. She had tried to call Derrick but apparently he must have been in a dead zone.

When asked, Derrick had told his sister that he had grabbed something at the Taco Bell in Healdsburg and wasn't hungry. He also had told the two of them that yes, he was tired, but he was also full of adrenaline from the events of the day and was going to nurse some McDonald whiskey and decompress before joining Paddy in the loft.

So the Jefferson’s had left him here on the deck, where a combination of good Scotch and eight hours of driving had finally lulled him to sleep, only to be awakened by the sound of his parents making love.

The open bedroom window was near the edge of the deck, but apparently sound travelled well in the stillness of the northern California coastal forest. There was no way he could move; the glider on which he sat would squeak with the movement. Fixing it was one of the items on the list of chores Derrick hoped to handle with his father before he left on Sunday. And even if he did manage to stand without making a sound, he would still have to enter the house and climb the stairs to the loft. The only course of action was to remain where he was and try not to think about what was occurring.

"I need." CJ voice sounded plaintive, as if she were in pain.

"Tell me what you need, sweetheart," his father's voice, hoarse but not strained, replied.

"Harder. Faster. Deeper."

The rates of breathing increased, along with the rustle of sheets. Every woman is different, but Derrick recognized the mewlings of a woman approaching climax.

"Come to me, sweetheart. Let it happen. Nothing else. Just focus on what's happening to you. Come to me; come to me."

At least it would be over soon, Derrick thought. His father would see to his stepmother's satisfaction, take his own release, and the two of them would fall into post-coital slumber. And then Derrick would go to bed.

__

"Oh, my poor baby!" Alicia said sympathetically.

"Hey, a mother shouldn't be empathizing with a son in a situation like this",Danny laughed.

"And what should a mother do?"

"This."

Danny began circle around Alicia.

Derrick tried as hard as he could to block out CJ's cries and then sighs of satisfaction. He waited for the rest. And waited. And waited.

"Paul?" CJ's voice was puzzled. "You didn't - ".

"You need more, sweetheart," Paul chuckled, "at least one more. And I'm no longer twenty-two, I'm sorry, so I decided to wait."

"But you're better now than when you were twenty-two. And somehow, when you get hard like this, I think you're bigger than you were then." There was a pause and Derrick heard the sound of a kiss before she continued. "It's probably not the right thing to say, but I'm so glad that when you're aroused, you are so long and so thick. It feels so good to be filled by you, to feel you touching every last little square millimeter."

"It's because you make me this way. I swear, CJ, all you have to do is enter the room, all I need to do is hear your voice, and I bone up like a thirteen-year old."

"Well, thank God you don't go off like a thirteen-year old," CJ giggled.

"And what experience do you have regarding sexual urges in thirteen-year old boys?" his father's voice chuckled in amusement.

"I do have two older brothers."

"Who would NEVER tell a little sister about their worries, and even if you were eavesdropping, what would you understand a seven or eight?"

"And my girlfriends had younger brothers."

There was the sound of more kissing.

"Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes"

More kissing.

“Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, thy temples are like a piece of pomegranate within thy locks."

The sheets rustled again. There was a slight sound of suction, of a hand releasing from damp flesh.

His father was lucky, Derrick thought, to have a profession that allows him to quote biblical love poetry. He imagined himself reciting from Williston’s “Contracts” while romancing Natasha and then had to stifle the laugh that came to his lips.

"Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins,Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor: thy belly is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies."

"Paul."

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"I want to turn over."

And with those five words, Derrick Reeves became, if not as long and thick, at least as hard, as his father.

Derrick tried hard not to imagine what was happening in the room as the rustling of sheets grew louder.

"The joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman."

Like many men, Derrick enjoyed the site of a woman on her knees with her butt in the air, her head cradled on her arms. Like many men, he reveled in the occasional joining with a woman from behind her, pulling her softness against him as he used his other hand to send her into ecstasy. He had always been gentle and careful, to convey only feelings of care and respect, and most of the women with whom he had been intimate had been willing to make love in that manner. Although some had been a little apprehensive at first, they soon came around, especially after they had experienced orgasm with his arousal inside them and his fingers on them. But none of them had ever initiated the posture.

"Lift your hips, sweetheart. Let me adjust this pillow."

Apparently, this was not the garden variety “animal” position.

At first, there was only the sign of breathing in unison and the faintest creaking of a bed.

"I'm not too heavy on you?"

"Never. I love the feel of your body on mine, your chest on my back, your arms on my arms. I feel so safe, so cherished."

The breathing of the two people in the bedroom became more rapid, but remained in unison.

"Fingers."

The breathing became more ragged. One more time, Derrick tried to block out the sound of his stepmother's climax. This time, it was followed by the sound of exertion, as if his father were lifting himself into a pushup, and even more labored breathing. A few more seconds, and the satisfied groan of an orgasmic male came through the window.

And Derrick was even more rock hard than he had been a few minutes ago.

The breathing slowed, quieted. More rustling of sheets as a body shifted in the bed.

"Turn round, sweetheart; come here."

More kissing sounds.

"Paul, what are you DO!-ing?"

"It's not obvious?"

"You don't HAVE! to."

"But I do. You have one more inside you."

Kissing sounds.

"It's not FAIR! Three to one."

"Four to three, counting this morning."

"Speaking of which, you certainly reACT!ed quickly this morning. You were rea-DY! within twenty minutes after you - "

"Reacted waking up to find my wife kneeling in front of me, taking me in her mouth, covering my groin with her hair and sending me to the heights of rapture?"

"When I woke up and SAW! you in the chair with the Bible in your lap, dozing, I just HAD!-"

"Open wide for me, sweetheart."

"Paul, you really DON'T have to"

"Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands."

"Ephesians," CJ sighed. "Your namesake was quite the chauvinist, WAS!n't he?"

"But he also said 'So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies'. Let me love you. Open wide for me." The last sentence was so soft, Derrick barely understood the words.

Seven minutes later, Derrick finally heard the words that were music to his ears.

"G'night, husband, thank you."

"Goodnight and God bless, sweetheart."

Ten minutes later, the only sounds coming from the open window were two light snores and Derrick was finally able to leave the deck. The glider squeaked once when he stood up and then three more times as it moved back and forth.

He climbed the stairs to the loft as quietly as possible. Jasmine raised her head, then lowered it again. Paddy stirred once and turned over, then went back to sleep. Derrick stripped to his underwear and got into bed. He was still fully aroused and seriously debated not waiting for it to go away on its own. He decided against so doing because of the little boy sleeping four feet on the other side of the area rug.

He also changed his mind when he realized that if he took things into his own hands (so to speak), he would have to change the bed in the morning. And Derrick would prefer to sleep in the sheets that were already on the bed.

Earlier, as he was lifting Natasha's suitcase into his car, the young woman turned to CJ.

"Oh, Mrs. Reeves, I should have stripped the bed and changed it! I'm sorry." Now that she was going, Derrick and Paddy would be moving out of the camper and into the loft.

"Natasha, it's no problem. I'll take care of it," CJ assured her.

Derrick went back into the house for a final restroom trip and spoke to CJ in a low voice when he came back outside.

"Don't bother with the bed, CJ."

The look she gave him told him that she understood.

He had been dating Natasha for seven months and she was still not ready to take their relationship to sexual intimacy. Yes, he was frustrated, but he was also patient. Once his father knew that his mother was the right woman for him, his father was willing to wait six months for her. His father had also told him that he was willing to wait for CJ, for two months the first time and for five months this second time, because the prize was worth the wait.

Nineteen months ago, Derrick had decided that he needed to leave a life of somewhat casual serial monogamy and look for something better. In searching for that permanency, he had been celibate for fifteen months. Derrick knew in his heart that Natasha was the woman he wanted in his life for as long as God gave the two of them; that certainty sustained him in times of physical need. Of course, he wasn’t perfect; he had resorted to self-release two or three times. It would be so easy to do so now, but then he would not be able to spend the next few days sleeping on sheets imbued with the scent of her body wash and the faint scent of her body, hugging the pillow that held echoes of her shampoo. So Derrick yawned and filled his mind with visions of the woman who had occupied his bed, albeit without him, for the past few days.

**8:00 AM**

“Derrick! Wake up! It’s a beautiful day!”

Derrick groaned to himself. He had been asleep for only a few hours after a long and tiring day. But he knew that Paddy had been very understanding for the past four or five days (“I know you want to spend time with your special friend, Derrick. Don’t worry about me; we can do things after she leaves.”) and while Natasha wasn’t supposed to leave until Sunday and while Paddy wouldn’t be happy that Natasha’s mother was sick, Derrick was sure that the kid was looking forward to having more time with his big brother.

“Come on, Derrick, Papa’s making French toast!”

Hearing that, Derrick’s interest was engaged. His father made excellent French toast.

Five minutes later, Derrick was with the others at the kitchen table, gratefully drinking the coffee, even though it was decaf, that Tom had handed to him. The family was discussing their plans for the morning.

Caitlin and Dansha needed new sneakers (the result of a romp in the mud two days ago), so Paul and CJ would be taking the girls with them up to Mendocino and a trip to the farmers’ market. Deborah and Tom would be staying home; Deborah, who was four months’ pregnant was having some morning sickness issues, and was gamely trying to keep some saltines in her stomach. Paddy was supposed to be going horseback riding with Ethan Amberson and his father. He tried to get Derrick to come along with them.

“Paddy, I’m really exhausted from yesterday and I need a bit more sleep. I’ll tell you what, when you get back later this afternoon, we can spend the rest of the day together.”

At that moment, Phil Amberson drove up and the next few minutes were spent getting Paddy and his fanny pack into the truck.

“I’ve got more toast,” Paul said. “Sweetheart?”

Derrick watched as his father rested one hand on CJ’s back while setting the plate in front of her. She took a piece and then, smiling up at her husband, reached for his palm and pressed it to her lips.

“Thank you.”

Derrick observed the unspoken messages that passed between his father and his stepmother and sighed. He knew that sex wasn’t the only criteria for a happy marriage, but he also knew that it played a very vital part. CJ glowed with the contentment of a woman who was expertly taken care of physically and emotionally and his father exuded the confidence of a man who was not only satisfied by his wife’s attentions but who also knew that he was satisfying said wife.

Derrick had planned, at an opportune moment, to privately mention to his father that “sound carries up here at night” but now he decided against so doing. Derrick did not want to say anything that might inhibit the physical expression of love between his parents; what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. Instead, Derrick asked the two of them if he could take Paddy for a ride up the coast later in the day and stop for supper along the way.

After breakfast, Paul and CJ went off with the girls; Tom returned to the upstairs bedroom to be with his wife. And Derrick returned to the loft to catch up on his sleep.

**11:00 AM**

“Yes, your face is getting fuller and yes, your waist is thicker, but it’s for a good reason. You are so beautiful, Debs. No, you just sit here by the fire and I’ll get you some ginger ale.”

As Derrick woke to the sound of his brother-in-law’s voice, several thoughts raced through his head. Most important, whatever he might overhear, at least it wouldn’t involve sex, since Deborah and Tom were obviously in the living room and they knew that he was sleeping in the open loft. Also, even as a child, his sister would never let anyone, not even him, call her by a nickname; apparently spouses were special.

“I hope I’m not being too much of a wet blanket on the family,” Deborah said, “but I’m just so tired all the time, and with this upchucking -”

“Love, remember the look in your father’s eyes when we told them, that first night? And how excited the kids are about being aunts and uncles?”

“I know. I’m so glad no one figured it out back in May. It was hard enough having to deal with my conflicted emotions, on the one hand taking every care to protect and nurture this little boy and on the other, steeling myself for what would happen if the test results were bad. I would have hated having to lie to my father, to tell him I miscarried when I -”

“Honey, were you having second thoughts about our decision? You should have told me. Remember, when we first talked about starting a family, I told you that I would live with whatever you decided. Yes, the decision affected me as I thought your father accepted the idea that it’s a personal decision, no matter his personal views on the subject of abortion?”

“He does, and he would never criticize, at least not to my face. But it would have killed him with guilt that he gave this to me. That’s why I would have kept the pregnancy from him, or lied about its end if he had known about it and if we had to abort.”

_"Well, I don’t accept it and believe you me, if I were down there and knew about it, I would be letting my great-granddaughter know exactly how I feel!” Esther Dawson harrumphed._

“ _Oh, Meemaw!” Alicia sighed._

“ _You agree with her?”_

“ _In that it’s her decision, yes.”_

“ _Well, I never!” Esther answered._

“ _And be glad you never had to make such a decision, Mother Dawson,” Bernice told her mother-in-law. “As am I. Only a fool would fail to notice how much anguish Deborah and Tom went through waiting for the results. It would not have been a frivolous decision.”_

“Well, thank God, we were lucky this time, Debs. We have, by all accounts, a healthy little boy growing inside you, and in five months or so, we’ll be holding him in our arms.”

Wow. Derrick would have preferred hearing his sister having sex than to have heard **that** conversation. But then, he was also a little hurt that she hadn’t discussed it with him. They had always told each other **everything**. He knew about Deborah’s first period before their mother did. They had each told the other about their first sexual experiences. The only reason that his father knew about Natasha before Deborah did was because his father was there when he met the French professor and Deborah was in Alaska at the time. But he had called his sister that night and told her about her future sister-in-law.

But that was part of being married, all that leaving family and cleaving to another business. That’s what Derrick was hoping to have with Natasha.

His cell rang. Quickly, he knew he had to fake being roused from sleep, so he let it ring two more times before answering with a sleepy voice. It was Natasha, calling to let him know that her mom would be in the hospital for a few more days, but that she wouldn’t be needing bypass surgery. As long as she was in Arizona, she was going to stay here a bit longer. However, she should be back in San Luis Obispo before Derrick for Scotland and Danny’s niece’s wedding.

By the time Derrick got downstairs and had cleaned up, his parents and his little sisters had returned. (“See shoes!”) The four of them had eaten lunch in town and came back with sandwiches and extremely yummy desserts for the others.

Paddy returned from his horseback adventure, having been fed by the Ambersons, and after a while, the two brothers left for their “guys only” adventure.

When Derrick and Paddy returned at 8:30, the child was sleeping, his T-shirt showing evidence of the burgers and fries that had comprised dinner, (“There’s a new place in Caspar. It’s not much more than a bar – burgers, shrimp, and chili – but someone in Fort Bragg said that the burgers were out of this world that the crowd was low-key before 9:00 or so. Paddy wasn’t the only kid there.”) Derrick carried his brother up to the loft and then stopped in the kitchen to get the beer he would have drunk with his supper had discretion not gotten the better of him.

There was a beautiful arrangement of flowers on the kitchen table, and Derrick knew without checking for a card that the bouquet was a “Thank you” from Natasha.

**July 16; 6:45 AM**

The chirping of birds nudged its way into Derrick’s consciousness. He opened his eyes briefly, taking in the early morning sun coming through the window, and then closed them again. Later today, after church and brunch, in Mendocino, he would drive back to San Luis Obispo.

Derrick was of two minds about leaving. It had been an enjoyable two weeks with his family, especially the last week, when Natasha had been with them. However, it would be good to be back in his own condo, with his own bathroom. It would be good to be able to draw the blinds and walk around in his underwear, or nude. Derrick loved his family, loved being with his parents, reveled in Paddy’s adoration, enjoyed being with the little girls, and was thrilled to have spent some time with Deborah and Tom. And, of course, he would be returning to Kensington in ten days to go overseas for the wedding.

However, there was such a thing as too much togetherness. He had been put in the unenjoyable position of being an accidental eavesdropper twice over the course of this trip.

Actually, Derrick reminded himself, it was three times, if not four. He recalled the events at the beginning of the vacation.

**July 5, 2017; 8:30 PM**

“How did I know he was perfect for you, Alex? Well, I lived with him for five days, three guys in a space that was meant for two,” Paul said.

Then the minister turned to his son.

“Larry, the guy I shared the apartment with that first year in law school, couldn’t afford more than two days in a hotel when his fiancée came out for her spring break, so after the first weekend, I moved into the frat house, so he and Rosemary could have some privacy.”

Luke Davidson and his wife Alex were old friends of his parents, from their days at Berkeley well over thirty years ago. The Davidson’s were on their way back to Oregon from Palo Alto, where their son Rick was attending an orientation camp for incoming student-athletes at Stanford, and would be spending the night and the next day with the Reeves before leaving on Friday morning.

“But there was no way I was going to give up my weekend pleasures,” Paul continued. “Everything would be behind closed doors; it wouldn’t be a _ménage à quâtre_ \- ”

“Hey!” CJ exclaimed, “not in front of the kids (Paddy always wanted to know what unfamiliar words and phrases meant). Speaking of which, Caitlin, Dansha, it’s time to get you in bed. You can hardly keep your eyes open.” She looked at the two little girls, who were curled up on either side of their father. “Hold the rest of this story. I’ll be back,” she finished as she pushed on the arm rests of her chair.

“I’m not sleepy, Papa, and I’m bigger than Dansha,” Caitlin pouted. “Can I stay up?”

“Listen to Mama, Kitty-Caitlin,” the minister gently reproved the redhead.

“ _Yes, listen to your mother,” Danny said, reaching down and_ _lightly patting the little derrière._

“ _Daughters learn early, don’t they?” Leo laughed._

“ _Aye, that they do,” Hugh Stewart agreed._

“ _Little hussies, the lot o’ them,” Brianna said. “Look, here comes Callisto.”_

“ _Bottoms up!” Abbey cried as Alicia passed around the pitcher of white sangria._

_The group was playing the “Jupiter Moonsrise” drinking game. (And in heaven, you could easily see all sixty-three of them. It would be a very pleasant experience.)_

“CJ, I’ll put the girls to bed,” Derrick said, easily rising from his chair. “You stay and visit.”

“Thank you,” Derrick’s stepmother replied.

“Yes, thank you, son.”

“Mama, Papa,” Paddy said as Derrick was getting Caitlin to wrap her arms and around his neck and her legs around his waist, piggyback style, “may I go read in bed for a while, since we men are getting up real early to go fishing tomorrow?”

Derrick stood up and picked up Dansha in his arms. Luckily, the girls were in the downstairs bedroom, so his walk with the two of them was not that far.

Thirty-five minutes later, his sisters had fallen asleep two-thirds of the way through “The Velveteen Rabbit” and Derrick gently kissed their foreheads, adjusted the covers, and prepared to leave the room.

Derrick had always been aware of the adoration which Caitlin and Dansha lavished on his father, but it was only lately that his thoughts on the situation turned from amusement to envy. For some reason, Derrick found himself looking forward to the day when he too would be the honored guest at a tea party, would be expected to make anything and everything better with a kiss and a hug, would be accepted as the ultimate authority on anything from why the sky was blue to setting bedtime.

Before going back outside, he went upstairs to check on Paddy. The boy was kneeling by the window, his book unopened on the bed.

“I thought you wanted to read?”

Paddy turned around to face his brother. “I was bored, so I told a fib. Billy’s cousin told us it’s okay to tell a lie if you do it because you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. Like when Mama makes chili with that tofu stuff instead of hamburger.”

Derrick laughed with the child. “That stuff is really rancid, isn’t it? Well, it will be our little secret. But you were right about needing sleep for tomorrow; don’t stay up too late.”

As Derrick returned to deck, he caught a look of half amusement and half embarrassment on his father’s face.

“I’m sure I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Luke Davidson took a sip from his glass. “Damn! This is good scotch!” Then he continued the conversation.

“Oh, come on, Paul, you were **too** hyper! You made all of us polish our shoes, press our slacks, and you insisted we all wear jackets. You made sure that all the thorns had been removed from the roses. I half-expected you to check behind our ears, to make sure we had washed!”

Once again, the others tried to make Derrick part of the conversation, explaining about the “pinning ceremonies” that were still commonplace in the early 1980’s. Listening to their conversation, Derrick was once again struck by how much his father and CJ had loved each other when they first met. Again, he felt out of place, but the two couples randomly brought him into the conversation, going into detail about a particular memory or what would otherwise be an inside joke; it was enough to make Derrick feel it would be rude to leave.

Sitting there, Derrick was surprised at the casual intimacy that the two couples displayed in front of each other. There was nothing salacious or inappropriate, but it was obvious that these four people had been very close during those days at Berkeley and that his father was willing (or was it able, Derrick wondered) to relax his behavior with Luke and Alex in a way he wasn’t with anyone else. Derrick appreciated their efforts but also found himself wishing he were young enough to use a ruse like Paddy had to excuse himself from the group. For one thing, these were memories that his father had shared with someone other than his mother. For another, he felt that his presence might inhibit some aspects of the reunion between his father, CJ, and the Davidson’s.

Luke was sitting on the glider. His wife was leaning against pillow on one end, with her legs bent over Luke’s thighs and her feet resting on the other side of his body. When she turned on her side to face Paul and CJ while making a particular point, her husband’s hand absent-mindedly moved along the line of her hip from waist to knee and back again. But when Alex shifted again, the hand fell into a rather intimate location.

His father was on a chaise lounge, one leg bent with foot flat on the cushion and the other leg on the deck beside the chair. CJ was sitting between his legs, her back against her husband’s chest. His father’s arms were loosely draped around her shoulders. She reached back and kissed the side of Paul’s face.

“And here I thought you were the epitome of cool, the way you had arranged everything, getting all the other girls downstairs without my knowing anything,” CJ told him.

“By the time we got to your dorm, I was in the zone, sweetheart. I loved you so much, I wanted the world to know you were mine,” Paul answered. He kissed her shoulder.

Derrick knew it was subconscious, but it surprised him to see his father lightly caress the side of his stepmother’s breast.

“And you have no room to talk, Dr. Davidson. Within twenty-four hours of that dinner at my place, you thanked me for introducing you to your quote-unquote future wife; by the next Friday, you wanted me to go with you to look at engagement rings,” Paul lifted on hand from CJ’s shoulder to point at his old friend.

“I plead no contest. From the very start.” Luke picked up his wife’s hand and pressed it to his lips. “Right, Lexa?”

“From the very start. I never looked back.” Alex smiled at her husband and moved her hand from his mouth to caress his jaw line.

“And you have us to thank for it,” CJ laughed as she pulled Paul’s arms tighter around her shoulders.

Alex shifted again to get more comfortable and looked over to her hostess.

“CJ, I remember when you came back to the dorm that Sunday night after you spent that first weekend with Paul. Your face, when you said ‘I’m a woman now, a very lucky woman’, was glowing. I think I knew how much in love you were before you did yourself.”

Okay, Derrick said to himself, I really need to get out of here!

Fortuitously, Derrick’s phone rang. Recognizing the caller as one of the other lawyers on the Hollis staff, he excused himself and by the time he had finished the rather lengthy conversation, his folks and their guests were making their way inside. (“Five o’clock does come pretty early.”)

**July 7, 2015; 6:45 AM**

Derrick was fully awake; anticipating the day. In a few hours, right after the Davidson’s left for Agness, he would drive down to Santa Rosa and pick up Natasha, who would spend the next week with his family and then drive back to San Luis Obispo with him. In a few hours, he would be with the woman who would someday share his bed. Not in the next week, of course. Not in this house. And when it did happen for the first time, he would want to spend more time with her than a couple of hours at the Bide-A-Wee. So the best he could hope for would be maybe, just maybe, they would stop somewhere south of San Francisco and – well, best not to think about it. It would happen when it happens. He was a patient man, right now patient one month longer than his father had had to be for his mother.

“ _Here’s hoping the laddie doesna ha’ to wait seven years like I did,” Jem said as he lined up his shot at the pool table._

“ _Or eight,” Danny answered. He and Jem were paired against Hugh and Simon. Over at the next table, Leo and Fitz were battling Padraic Concannon and Talmadge Cregg. “But the wait was worth it.”_

“ _Indeed.”_

The smell of coffee wafted up the stairs to the loft; someone else was up. Probably Dad, he thought to himself, doing his usual early morning scriptural reading and meditation.

Derrick pulled on a pair of jeans and made his way downstairs. Daydreaming of the sight of Natasha coming down the steps of the little commuter plane, he poured himself a cup of coffee and headed toward the door to the deck, planning to sit in companionable silence with his father until the minister was finished with his devotionals.

He was already out the door when he heard the female voice coming from around the corner of the deck.

“CJ, you have no idea how much it fills my heart to finally see you happy, the way you deserve to be.”

“ _Hey, lady, what do you mean, finally?”_

“Alex, what do you mean, finally? I had six glorious years with Danny. And before that, my life wasn’t a total disaster.”

“I know that, CJ, even though I never got to meet him in person, I know you and Danny were in love, were happy. But that was the Claudia Jean Cregg that was worldly and accomplished, not the eager young girl who stood on the brink of life with me for four years at Berkeley. Remember, I was there when you first told me about the neat guy you met at the bookstore. I was there that Sunday when you told me ‘This is the day I’m going to lose my virginity’. I was there when you came back that night and told me that Paul said ‘Not just yet’, that he wanted to make sure you were safe, that he wanted to make it special for you. I was there seven days later when you came back from the weekend with him, your face glowing so bright. I was there when he pinned you. I was there the next fall when you came back to the dorm after ‘playing house’ for a week. Your happiness was overwhelming.

“And I was there when he left for New Haven. I was there through countless nights of crying. I was there wondering if you would survive, making sure that you kept up your grades. And I was there on graduation day, when those flowers arrived and I saw how your face lit up again for the first time in a year.

“CJ, I see you happy now the way you were happy then. Intellectually, I know you were happy with Danny, but I never **SAW**.”

“Alex, do you think that everything happens for a reason?” CJ asked. “Paul says that God has no real plans, He presents us with possibilities, that there is almost always more than one.”

“You mean, what if Paul hadn’t wanted to be a minister?”

“Or what if he had been accepted here? What if I said, ‘Yes, I will transfer to Yale’ when he asked?” CJ wondered. “Or applied to grad school there? What if I hadn’t listened to his mother that Christmas, when she told me to leave him alone? What if I had called as soon as I got the flowers and he had been home?”

“And the big if. What if you had been pregnant that November? You’d be like me, with several grown kids and even some grand kids,” Alex laughed.

“I’m not sure about the several,” CJ said, remembering that Alicia had miscarried twice after the twins. “And what about the rest of it? Working for Jed Bartlet, the finest president this country has had. ‘Road to a Better World’. The Nobel. For that matter, what about Danny, what about Paddy, and Caitlin? What about Alicia, what about Derrick and Deborah?”

“ _There was someone else for me if I hadn’t met Paul,” Alicia told Helen Santos as they watched the pool tournament._

“ _If I hadn’t met Matt, there was a teacher in San Anselmo,” the former First Lady replied._

“ _But no one else for me,” Danny said. “Brianna and CJ – those were my possibilities. “I would have died a lonely bachelor, with no kids.”_

It gave Derrick pause. What if his father had married CJ? What if his parents had never met, married, and conceived him and Deborah? Would he (Derrick knew intuitively that his soul was male) have been born? What would he be doing? Would he be American or something else? Would he have had the opportunities with which he had been blessed – two loving parents, the education, the closeness with a twin sister? Would he still be black?

In any event, Derrick decided to not make his presence known and quietly slipped back into the kitchen, sitting at the table with his coffee.

**July 16; 7:30 PM : south of Salinas, CA**

Derrick reached over and changed the channel on his car stereo. Now that the game was over, he wanted music, not the call-in show with the unending coterie of fans who felt they could manage better than the man the Giants hired to do the job. In two hours, give or take, he would be home. Natasha had called while he was driving through San Jose. She would be back on Thursday and he made note of her arrival time.

It had been a very interesting, educational, (and somewhat disturbing) two weeks. His inadvertent eavesdropping had given him food for thought.

He also decided that he would reacquaint himself with the _Song of Solomon_ before Thursday, just in case.


End file.
